For the last few months a new group, dedicated to making Helper a better place to have businesses and to live in has been meeting. The initial meetings have been organized by the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce, but now leaders from the community are starting to emerge and add to the meetings.
On August 24 the group held it’s latest meeting with people from business areas, as well as civic groups attending.
“It’s interesting,” said Ken Larson, the president of the Carbon Chamber as he started the meeting. “We have had different groups of people here each time. The first time it was a lot of civic leaders, last time there were a lot of the artists in town and this time there are more business people.”
The largest point of discussion during the meeting was talk about what could be done to get people to come into Helper from the highway. There were a number of suggestions.
First came the idea of having a large horseshoe tournament by possibly setting them up at the old pony league field in town. That idea met with most peoples support.
Next Mayor Joe Bonacci talked about the fact that the city has put in an recreational vehicle dump station and plans on putting up signs on the highway to advertise it is there. He said those signs are presently being made.
Some in the group asked why the city doesn’t advertise that area as a rest stop, but Bonacci said that to be qualified as a rest stop there must be certain kinds of facilities as well as adequate parking for such a venue.
“The state has regulations about that and we don’t meet the requirements,” he said.
Another suggestion was the possibility of putting up a wall of rememberance for miners that have been killed in mines in Carbon County, similar to the war memorial for those killed in Vietnam in Washington D.C.
Another suggestion was to put directories in key parts of town to explain the businesses that are available to them. One of the ideas was to put such a directory in the Western Railroad and Mining Museum and even at Workmen’s Market, where a lot of people pull off the highway to shop.
There was also discussion about the various events that presently happen in town, including the Helper Light Parade, the American Legion Baseball Tournament and the Helper Arts Festival. Almost everyone in the room was brainstorming ways to bring more people to those events and to in turn send more business to those merchants located on Main Street.
The next meeting of the Helper Alliance will take place on Sept.28 at 4 p.m. in the small front room at the Helper Auditorium.
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